Intuition and the Creation of a Better World

Plato

The true earth is pure and situated in the pure heaven? But we who live in the hollows are deceived into the notion that we are dwelling above on the surface of the earth: which is just as if a creature who was at the bottom of the sea were to fancy that he was on the surface of the water, and that the sea was the heaven.... If any man could arrive at the exterior limit, or take the wings of a bird and come to the top, then like a fish who puts his head out of the water and sees this world, he would see a world beyond: and, if the nature of man could sustain the sight, he would acknowledge that this other world was the place of the true heaven and the true light and the true earth.

Plato (tr. B. Jowett), The Dialogues of Plato.

They (the statesmen elect) must raise the eye of the soul to the universal light which lightens all things, and behold the absolute good; for that is the pattern according to which they are to order the State and the lives of individuals, and the remainder or their own lives also; making philosophy their chief pursuit.